A Tool for Accurate Stoichiometric Composition of Cryopreservative Media for Fetal and Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell-Derived Human Neural Stem Cells.

Fetal human neural stem cells (fhNSC) are of considerable interest as potential regenerative therapies for neuronal or glial degeneration or destruction resulting from genetic abnormalities, disease, or injury. Realization of this potential requires securing a supply of cells sufficient to meet the needs of transplantation, which are often tens to hundreds of millions of cells per dose. This challenge necessitates the establishment of safe and efficient cell banking protocols.

Generation of Complete Multi-Cell Type Lung Organoids From Human Embryonic and Patient-Specific Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells for Infectious Disease Modeling and Therapeutics Validation.

The normal development of the pulmonary system is critical to transitioning from placental-dependent fetal life to alveolar-dependent newborn life. Human lung development and disease have been difficult to study due to the lack of an in vitro model system containing cells from the large airways and distal alveolus. This article describes a system that allows human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) and induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) to differentiate and form three-dimensional (3D) structures that emulate the development, cytoarchitecture, and function of the lung ("organoids"), containing epithelial and mesenchymal cell populations, and including the production of surfactant and presence of ciliated cells.

A Biomarker for Predicting Responsiveness to Stem Cell Therapy Based on Mechanism-of-Action: Evidence from Cerebral Injury.

To date, no stem cell therapy has been directed to specific recipients-and, conversely, withheld from others-based on a clinical or molecular profile congruent with that cell's therapeutic mechanism-of-action (MOA) for that condition. We address this challenge preclinically with a prototypical scenario: human neural stem cells (hNSCs) against perinatal/neonatal cerebral hypoxic-ischemic injury (HII). We demonstrate that a clinically translatable magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) algorithm, hierarchical region splitting, provides a rigorous, expeditious, prospective, noninvasive "biomarker" for identifying subjects with lesions bearing a molecular profile indicative of responsiveness to hNSCs' neuroprotective MOA.

Controversies in ASSAY and drug development technologies: a focus on assessing irreproducibility.

Has the impact of irreproducibility on the discovery and development of drugs, as with global warming, metaphorically speaking, crept up on us as we slept? Or is the problem more an issue of heightened awareness? We currently find ourselves in a time when the impact of irreproducibility can easily be amplified by the combinatorial effect of our increasing reliance on advanced technologies and unrealistic expectations of how scientific truths unfold. How and why we got here is a topic that has been written on extensively (1-3) and is probably as complex as any other problem, given the dependence of science today on so many external forces. Through a series of questions, we asked members of our editorial board their opinions on scientific irreproducibility.

Cyclic olefin polymers: innovative materials for high-density multiwell plates.

Extension of ultra-high-throughput experiment (UHTE) approaches to new assay methodologies is often limited by compromised data quality when samples are miniaturized. Overcoming this challenge requires attending to all components of an automated laboratory system contributing to assay variability. A key but often neglected source is the high-density multiwell platform or microtiter plate.

Piezo- and solenoid valve-based liquid dispensing for miniaturized assays.

Miniaturization of biological assays requires dispensing liquids in the submicroliter range of volumes. Accuracy and reproducibility of dispensing this range depend on both the dispenser and the receptacle in which the assay is constructed. Miniaturization technologies developed by Aurora Discovery, Inc.